Card holders



Jan. 20, 1970 A J. F. HILL 3,490,162

CARD HOLDERS Filed Aug. 3l, 196'? Ff T97/ /a /3 (l 7 /5 (//4 /0 /fL l? /7/5 I 5 /2 /2 /2 /41 I /2 /0 l l ff /5v\\ l ,1i/0 22`|i ,SMITH n 25 25/ il g' Je r. /5/

/6 y l MI 25 l //7' 20 will' 2/ i' 1 I 'l l' V I l y (I 22 Inventor #0H/V F. HILL v Attorney;

United States Patent() 3,490,162 CARD HOLDERS John F. Hill, Kent, England, assigner, by mesne assignments, to Twinlock Limited, Kent, England Filed Aug. 31, 1967, Ser. No. 664,763 Claims priority, application Great Britain, Sept. 2, 1966, 39,370/ 66 Int. Cl. G09f 1/10 U.S. Cl. 40-124.2 7 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A holder for displaying cards of a kind provided with a pair of opposed ears, comprising a pair of parallel guide rails and several U-shaped -bridge pieces mounted on the guides, slots for receiving the cards being formed between adjacent bridge pieces when they abut on the rails.

This invention relates to card holders adapted to receive and display cards of a kind having an ear extending outwardly from each of two opposed edges thereof at or near one end.

According to the invention there is provided a holder for cards of the kind defined comprising a pair of spaced parallel guides, and a plurality of bridge pieces slidably mounted on the guides, the bridge pieces being constructed so that when two `bridge pieces abut together they define between them a slot in which a card can be received with its ears supported on the ends of the slot.

According to another aspect of this invention there is provided a bridge piece, constructed as disclosed in the last foregoing paragraph, for use with a card holder for cards of the kind defined.

The bridge pieces are preferably formed at least lpartly of flexible material, such -as of a flexible plastics material, whereby they may be flexed sufficiently to enable them to be mounted on or removed from the guides.

The invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a front elevational of an embodiment of the invention with three bridge pieces and one card in position;

FIG. 2 is a top view of the embodiment of FIG. l; and

FIG. 3 is a partial side View of the device shown in FIGS. l and 2.

Referring to the drawings, a holder for cards of the kind defined comprises a generally rectangular back plate provided with holes 11 for enabling the holder to be secured to a wall or other convenient surface. Two grooved members 12 are secured, suitably by gluing, to the longer edges of the back plate to define spaced parallel guides. Each member 12 comprises a back flange secured to the back of the back plate and a front tiange which extend perpendicularly of the plane of the back plate and has a longitudinal groove 13 formed therein. The grooves 13 in the two members 12 face each other and are each conveniently of slightly less than a semicircle in cross-section.

A plurality of bridge pieces 14 are provided, for frictional engagement with said grooved members 12. Each bridge piece 14 is generally U-shaped in cross-section and consists of span member 15 which forms the back of the U, and two end pieces 16 extending perpendicularly of the span member and which form the arms of the U. The outer faces of the two end pieces 16 have ridges 17 of similar cross-section to the groves 13 which are received in the grooves 13. Each span member 15 as best seen in FIGURE 2 lies generally in a plane disposed oblique to the plane of the back plate, said two 3,490,162 Patented Jan. 20, 1970 planes intersecting on a line parallel to the shortest line between the ridges 17.

The span members are formed of flexible plastics material, whereby they may be flexed sufficiently to enable the bridge pieces to `be engaged with the grooved members by relative movement in the direction indicated by arrows 18 in FIG. 2.

As best seen in FIG. 3 the bridge pieces 14 are constructed so that when a plurality thereof received in the guides abut one another, adjacent edges, e.g. 20, 21, of adjacent span members define closed slots `which face upwardly in a direction parallel to the guides. Cards of the kind hereinbefore defined can be received through the slots and be supported by their ears on the end pieces. An example is shown in FIGS. l and 3 where a suitablydimensioned card 22 is shown in position in the slot delined by edges 20 and 21 and supported by its ears 23 `on the end pieces 16 of a bridge piece.

It will be clear that when a card is in position in the holder only the information inscribed between the ears is visible, but the cards may be of any reasonable length to accommodate any further information required. Any card may be readily withdrawn or inserted at will and moreover if it is desired to remove one or more cards permanently, or to insert additional ones in a sequence, the bridge members 14 may be individually slid up or down longitudinally in the grooves.

If desired the back plate and t-wo grooved members could be formed as an integral structure, for example as a moulding in plastics material. However, an advantage of the former described construction is that standard grooved members 12 can be used with back plates 10 of various Widths, whereby the construction of card holders of different widths for carrying cards of various widths is facilitated.

As an alternative to simply aflixing each card holder to a wall, two suitably shaped members may be secured to the wall horizontally and parallel to one another, in which case the back plate 10 of each holder would be provided with two horizontal ridges adapted and spaced to engage resiliently in said channels. A row of holders may thus be mounted side-by-side. Moreover any holder may be slid along the channel members to a desired position, or removed or inserted where desired.

Card holders as described above can find application 4in many information display and storage systems; one

example of their use would be in a factory where one or more holders could be mounted each side of a factory time clock machine whereby each employee on arrival would remove his card from one holder, punch it, and place it in the other holder in any desired sequence.

A further application of the card holders described above, which illustrates their versatility to a greater extent, would be in a factory as a job progress chart. A row of card holders would be mounted side-by-side, each card holder carrying cards relating to jobs to be done by a particular one of several machines. When a job is completed in one machine the card relating thereto is removed from one holder ant inserted in the holder relating to the next machine, due to perform work on that job. The end card holder of the row could display customers names in alphabetical order. Thus the ability to be able to slide the individual bridge pieces up or down and to slide the card holders longitudinally becomes very useful, particularly when jobs are completed or customers or machines are changed.

I claim:

1. A holder for cards of the kind having an ear extending outwardly from each of two opposed edges thereof at or near one end, comprising a pair of spaced parallel guides, and a plurality of bridge pieces slidably mounted on the guides, the bridge pieces being constructed so that when two bridge pieces abut together they define between them a slot in which a card can be received with its ears supported on the ends ofthe slot.

2. A holder according to claim 1, in which the bridge pieces are U-shaped in cross-section.

3. A holder according to claim 2, in which each bridge piece comprises a pair of end pieces which form the arms of the U, and Which engage the guides, and a span member lwhich forms the base of the U.

4. A holder according to claim 3, in which the guides are mounted on a generally rectangular back plate, and in which the major plane of each span member is oblique with respect to the plane of the back plate.

5. A holder according to claim 1, in which each guide comprises a grooved member, the bridge pieces being formed with projections which engage in the grooves.

6. A holder according to claim 5, in which the groove in one of the grooved members faces the grooves in the other of the grooved members.

7. A card holder according to claim 1, in which the bridge pieces are formed at least partly of a exible material whereby they can be exed suciently to engage them with, or disengage them from, the guides.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,192,679 3/1940 Kimball 10--195 3,012,348 12/196-1 Smith 40-124 3,032,904 5/1962 Washburn 40-122 3,254,432 6/1966 Wassell 40-16 3,368,295 2/1968 Burns et al. 40-124 EUGENE R. CAPOZIO, Primary Examiner WENCESLAO I. CONTRERAS, Assistant Examiner 

